Review: Anthony Marwood does it all in an evening of Haydn and Beethoven

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Antony Marwood

Share on Google+:

It's a tribute to the professionalism of our St. Louis Symphony Orchestra musicians that they can play like a single organism even when there's not somebody waving a stick at them.

[Find out more about the music with my symphony preview.]

Yes, that's right: there was no conductor on the podium for the concert Friday night (March 15, 2019) of works by Beethoven and Haydn. Indeed, there was no podium at all. That's because violin soloist Anthony Marwood also filled the roles of conductor/leader ("leader" is concertmaster to us Yanks). When not actively playing his violin, he led the orchestra with a mix of eye contact and body language that kept everything moving along smoothly, even during the demanding Beethoven Violin Concerto that took up the second half of the program.

Talk about being the hardest working man in show business!

Historically speaking, of course, it wasn't all that unusual for the conductor to also be a member of the ensemble--most commonly the keyboard player. Handel, for example, got his first big break as an opera composer ("Almira," which he wrote in 1705 at age 19) in part because he had the very visible job of harpsichordist/conductor at a theater in Hamburg. Still, it's rare these days.

It's also rare to see most of the orchestra (everybody but the cellists, whose instruments mandate a chair, and the bassoonists) performing standing rather than seated. I don't know whether or not that was common practice in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when the works on this weekend's program were written, but it did seem to allow for a degree of physical involvement with the music that wouldn't be quite so easy to come by had everyone been seated. All that exposed wood on stage also seemed to produce a bigger and brighter sound than I would have expected, given that Mr. Marwood was working with a smaller orchestra (a little over 30 musicians; very appropriate for the period).

Standing room only on stage

The concert opened with a light and charming Beethoven miniature, his "Romance No. 2." Written when the composer was in his late 20s, it's sweetly melodic with occasional glimpses of the drama that would characterize Beethoven's later work. It got an elegant and varied performance from Mr. Marwood and the orchestra.

Up next was Haydn's Symphony No. 44 in E minor, published in 1772. It's known as the "Treuer" ("mourning") symphony mostly because of the contemplative tone of the Adagio third movement, although the dark and driven feel of the other three movements seems to fit with the nickname as well. It's one of several symphonies Haydn wrote that were inspired by the Sturm und Drang ("storm and stress") movement in 18th century German literature and music that emphasized drama and conflict.

Conductor Kenneth Woods once called this symphony "a work conceived in fire and bathed in blood." I don't know about the blood, but there was certainly fire and dramatic power in Mr. Marwood's interpretation, especially in the contrast between his serenely contemplative third movement and powerful urgency of his fourth. There was some excellent playing from the band here as well, including some particularly lovely work in the second movement by Thomas Jöstlein and Chris Dwyer on horns.

The Beethoven concerto took up the second half of the concert and here, again, Mr. Marwood proved as capable a conductor as he was a soloist. I would have liked a bit more drama in the first movement, but his playing was impeccable, including an impressive, flashy cadenza of his own devising, based on one Sarasota Music Festival director Robert Levin prepared for (I think) the Henle Urtext edition of the concerto.

The second movement was wonderfully warm and heartfelt, with a nice solo by Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews, and the Rondo finale tripped along happily with strong dynamic contrasts, another striking Levin-inspired cadenza, and an irresistible sense of momentum that had Mr. Marwood almost to dancing in spots. My minor misgivings about the first movement not withstanding, this was a performance that had real visceral power overall.

Friday night's concert will be repeated Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, March 16 and 17, at Powell Symphony Hall in Grand Center. Next weekend, Gilbert Varga conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, along with cellist Daniel Müller-Schott. The program consists of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Dukas, Lalo's Cello Concerto, and the Franck Symphony in D minor. Performances are Friday at 10:30 am and Saturday at 8 pm, March 22 and 23.

Symphony Preview: No compromises

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Share on Google+:

"The Germans," observed the great violinist Joseph Joachim, "have four violin concertos. The greatest, most uncompromising, is Beethoven's." And it's the centerpiece for this weekend's performances by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (March 15-17) with Anthony Marwood conducting and doubling as the soloist.

"Beethoven Letronne" by Blasius Höfel
Licensed under Public Domain
via Wikimedia Common

Like many of the great 19th century composers, Beethoven wrote only one concerto for the violin, but--as Mr. Joachim observed--it's a corker. He was, unfortunately, so tardy in completing it that the soloist at the work's 1806 premiere, Franz Clement (for whom Beethoven had written the piece) had no time to rehearse and might have even been obliged sight read the thorny solo part.

The premiere took place on December 23, 1806, at the Theater an der Wien as part of what Brockway and Weinstock, in the 1967 edition of their chatty "Men of Music," call "a singular program":

[The concerto's] first movement was a feature of the opening half of the entertainment, and the second and third movement were given during the second half. Intervening was, among other compositions, a sonata by Franz Clement, played on one string of a violin held upside down.

They go on to note that "it is surely no wonder that, produced under these circumstances, it was a failure. It was at once pronounced insignificant and went immediately into exile from the concert hall." Indeed, the concerto didn't begin to enter the standard repertoire until nearly two decades after the composer's death, and then to a great degree because it was relentlessly championed by Mr. Joachim, who first played it in 1844 (at the age of 12) at a concert in London with Felix Mendelssohn at the podium. Joachim also wrote cadenzas for the work that are still frequently performed.

Now, of course, the concerto is recognized as a masterful blend of solo showpiece and symphonic statement, with a substantial first movement that accounts for over half of the concerto's 45-minute running time, a mostly serene second, and a cheerfully flashy third.

There is, interestingly, a rarely heard alternate version of the Violin Concerto. As Michael Rodman writes at Allmusic.com:

At the prompting of Muzio Clementi -- one of the greatest piano virtuosi of the day aside from Beethoven himself -- Beethoven later made a surprisingly effective transcription of the violin concerto as the unnumbered Piano Concerto in D major, Op. 61a, famously adding to the first movement an extended cadenza that employs tympani in addition to the piano.

The revised concerto was first performed in Vienna in 1807, but despite the occasional high-profile recording like the one Peter Serkin did with Seiji Ozawa and the New Philharmonia in the late 1960s, it remains, as the reviewer of that release notes at Classics Today, "a curio."

Also on the program this weekend is another Beethoven work for violin and orchestra, the "Romance No. 2" in F major. Published in 1805 but written around 1798, it's the work of a young composer who had yet to break free of the Classical tradition. His first symphony was still a year in the future and it would be another five years before his "Eroica" symphony shook the world. "His radical new voice hadn't emerged yet," writes the anonymous annotator for the Baltimore Symphony , "and the model for his music was Mozart and certain French composers of the period."

Haydn circa 1770
Painting by
Ludwig Guttenbrunn

The one non-Beethoven piece on the program this weekend is Haydn's Symphony No. 44 in E minor. It's known as the "Treuer" ("mourning") symphony because of the contemplative tone of the Adagio third movement. Haydn liked it so much that he supposedly asked that it be played at his funeral. It's one of several symphonies he wrote that were inspired by the Sturm und Drang ("storm and stress") movement in 18th century German literature and music that emphasized drama and conflict.

A symphony that not only began but also ended in a minor key was unusual at the time--even more so when it was as dramatic as this one. Matthew Rye, in liner notes for Roy Goodman's recording with the Hanover Band describes the symphony this way:

The tense opening movement sums up Haydn's Sturm und Drang style with its fierce contrasts of dynamics, urgent semiquavers and, towards the end, a brief passage combining contrapuntal imitation with tonality-destabilising chromaticism. Counterpoint is again to the fore in the Minuet, a strict canon between upper and lower strings. The brighter mood of the major-key trio prepares the way for the Adagio, a movement which provides the calm contemplation lacking in the first movement. The finale is one of Haydn's most remarkable, a movement brimming with nervous energy that is the embodiment of "storm and stress."

Conductor Kenneth Woods has even gone so far as to describe it as "a work conceived in fire and bathed in blood."

Fortunately for Haydn, he had a secure job at the time as Kapellmeister for the Esterházy family, where he had considerable artistic freedom. "The Esterházy princes," according to Good Old Wikipedia, "were musical connoisseurs who appreciated his work and gave him daily access to his own small orchestra. During the nearly thirty years that Haydn worked at the Esterházy court, he produced a flood of compositions, and his musical style continued to develop."

Back at the top of the article, I said that Anthony Marwood is this week's soloist as well as conductor. He's also this week's concertmaster (or leader, as they say in his native Britain)--which is not as unusual as you might think. Until relatively recently in Western musical history it wasn't at all odd for the conductor to also be an instrumentalist--most commonly the keyboard player. Handel, for example, got his first big break as an opera composer (Almira, which he wrote in 1705 at age 19) in part because he had the very visible job of harpsichordist/conductor at a theater in Hamburg.

How will this change your experience of the music? Here's what Helen Kim (at the time a member of the SLSO's first violin section) had to say in anticipation of Mr. Marwood's upcoming appearance with the orchestra in an all-Mozart program in October 2013:

Performing this way tends to open up your ears. We get used to a certain dynamic with conductors, but when there's not somebody with a baton the whole time you have to be very alert aurally to much more subtle cues. It usually results in a more cohesive string sound. There's more interaction between sections. You'll see more eyes looking around, the musicians tracking each other.

As I wrote in my review of that concert, that's probably the closest we'll ever get to experiencing what an orchestral concert was like back in Mozart's day, when the conductor was not necessarily separate from the band.

The Essentials: Anthony Marwood conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and plays the violin solo in Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Romance No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, March 15-17. The program also includes Haydn's Symphony No. 44. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Review: Sing a song of Mozart

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Bernard Labadie
Photo by David Cannon

Share on Google+:

I'm always a bit sad when the turnout for a St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert is on the light side, especially when it's a concert that deserved a bigger house. Those who showed up Friday night (March 16, 2018) to hear Bernard Labadie conduct the SLSO were rewarded with exceptional performances of music by Haydn (his "Symphony No. 99"), Mozart (a collection of six opera and concert arias) and Mozart's older contemporary, Henri-Joseph Rigel, represented by his dramatic "Symphony No. 1."

[Find out more about the music with my symphony preview.]

Born in Germany in 1741 (15 years before Mozart), Rigel spent most of his working life in Paris. He had a respectable career, but these days he's not much more than a historical footnote. His "Symphony in C minor" was a lively way to start the evening, in any case, with a fast and stormy first movement, a lilting and even danceable second, and a dramatic finale.

Mr. Labadie delivered a lively and engaging performance of the symphony, with more variety and contrast in the work than I expected, based on the recordings I had heard of the piece. This was especially true in the first movement, which had struck me as a bit monotonous until I heard his nuanced interpretation. The Largo non troppo second movement was appropriately graceful and the Allegro spiritoso finale had appealing energy.

The six Mozart arias were selected and performed by German soprano Lydia Teuscher. When she last appeared here (with Mr. Labadie in "The Messiah" in 2015) I was impressed by her ability to communicate the emotional core of her lyrics. That same ability to both act and sing persuasively was apparent in this varied collection.

Lydia Teuscher
Photo by Shirley Suarez

The emotional temperature here ranged from the baffled innocence of "Chi sà, chi sà, qual sia," written as the 18th-century equivalent of a "bonus track" for the opera "Il burbero di buon cuore" by Spanish composer Martin y Soler, to the lovelorn anguish of "Bella mia fiamma...Resta, oh cara." The latter was written while Mozart was preparing the Prague premiere of "Don Giovanni," and while it was composed as an independent concert work, its high drama makes it an aria that could (as James Leonard notes) have been sung by Donna Elvira "without breaking character."

Ms. Teuscher's fluid and supple voice floated through the coloratura passages in these arias with ease, while her performance remained firmly grounded in their emotional contexts. Her experience singing Mozart heroines in "Die Zauberflöte" ("The Magic Flute"), "Le nozze di Figaro" ("The Marriage of Figaro"), and "Don Giovanni" with multiple opera companies clearly showed in the solid mix of musical taste and theatrical commitment she displayed here.

In two of the six arias--"L'amerò, sarò costante" from the early opera "Il re pastore" and "Non più, tutto ascoltai" (written as an alternate opening number of "Idomeno")--Ms. Teuscher was accompanied by SLSO Concertmaster David Halen, whose golden-voiced instrument blended beautifully with her singing. Their work in the latter piece was especially impressive, given the virtuosity required of both the singer and violinist towards the end.

The concert concluded with what was, for me, the highlight of the evening: an essentially perfect performance of Haydn's "Symphony No. 99" in E-flat major. Written in 1793 for the second of the composer's two highly profitable trips to London, the work is classic Haydn from beginning to end, complete with little musical jokes, like the odd hesitation in the first movement, and unexpected twists and turns, like the second movement Adagio that starts lyrical but turns dramatic and even tragic in the middle. As he did with the Rigel symphony, Mr. Labadie found an impressive variety of moods in the music, and the orchestra responded with flawless playing. It was a very satisfying end to a concert that once again displayed Mr. Labadie's deep understanding of 18th-century music.

Next at Powell Hall: Resident Conductor Gemma New leads the SLSO in "Pinocchio in Funland," a Family Series concert, on Sunday, March 18, at 3 pm . She returns to the podium the following week to lead the SLSO and piccolo soloist Ann Choomack (of the SLSO flute section) Friday at 10:30 am, Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm, March 23 -25. The program includes Rimsky-Korsakov's "Capriccio Espagnol" and Respighi's "The Pines of Rome", as well as works by Rautavaara and Tüür. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: Lydia the ballyhooed lady

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Lydia Teuscher
Photo by Shirley Suarez

Share on Google+:

"The most glorious creature under the sun / Thaïs, Garbo, DuBarry all rolled into one." That's how Groucho Marx describes "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" in the otherwise forgettable film "At the Circus."

A very different (and non-fictional) Lydia--soprano Lydia Teuscher--will be the featured soloist this weekend (Friday and Saturday, March 16 and 17, 2018) singing a collection of Mozart arias with guest conductor Bernard Labadie the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. And while nobody, as far as I know, has described compared her to those illustrious women, she has certainly come in for her fair share of praise around the world.

Born in Freiburg, Germany, in 1975, Lydia Teuscher studied at (among others) the Welsh College of Music and Drama and at the Hochschule für Musik in Mannheim. She has sung Haydn, Telemann, and Bach (including the "St. John Passion" with Mr. Labadie and the Academy of Ancient Music), but has also performed Mahler's song cycle "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" ("Youth's Magic Horn") under the baton of another name which will be familiar to SLSO regulars from her 2016 appearance here: Nathalie Stutzmann.

Most importantly for this weekend, though, is the fact that she has substantial experience with Mozart's operas. She has has sung Pamina in "Die Zauberflöte" ("The Magic Flute"), Susanna "Le nozze di Figaro" ("The Marriage of Figaro"), and Zerlina "Don Giovanni," all with multiple opera companies. Other operatic credits include the title role in Massenet's "Manon" and Gretel and "Hansel and Gretel."

She has been popular with the critics. Niels Swinkels at San Francisco Classical Voice, for example, called her "fantastic" in a 2015 notice. "Teuscher's voice," he wrote, "is simultaneously agile and lyrical; she sensitively but very precisely shifts from one mood to another." The following year, Lawrence Budmen at South Florida Classical review praised "the richness of Teuscher's vocalism and depth of emotion" in a concert appearance with Mr. Labadie. And reviewing her Susannah in "The Marriage of Figaro" with the Glyndebourne Festival at the London Proms, Huntley Dent at The Berkshire Review wrote that "she sang with remarkable purity and beauty of tone. Teuscher could make it big, I think."

Ms. Teuscher will be singing a mix of opera selections and concert arias (songs designed as stand-alone pieces) by Mozart. The earliest of them, "L'amerò, sarò costante" from "Il re pastore" ("The Shepherd King"), was written when the composer was just 19, while the latest, "S'altro che lagrime" from "La clemenza di Tito," comes from the final year of his life, so they effectively cover nearly all of his serious composing career. Since you can find excellent descriptions of them in Benjamin Pesetsky's progam notes, I won't go into details here. They're a good mix of lyrical and dramatic elements, and should be a nice showcase for Ms. Teuscher's abilities.

Henri-Joseph Rigel
Drawing by André Dutertre

It won't be an all-Mozart concert, though. The program will open with a St. Louis premiere: the "Symphony in C minor," Op. 12, No. 4 by Mozart's older contemporary, Henri-Joseph Rigel. Born in Germany in 1741 (15 years before Mozart), Rigel spent most of his working life in Paris, where he composed extensively for the Concert Spirituel, one of the first public concert series in history. He had a respectable career and wrote 14 operas, along with harpsichord works, string quartets, concertos and symphonies, but these days he's not much more than a historical footnote.

The "Symphony in C minor" is a lively way to start the evening, in any case, with a fast and stormy first movement, a lilting and even danceable second, and a dramatic finale. And all in under 20 minutes.

The concerts will conclude with the "Symphony No. 99 in E-flat major," which Haydn wrote in 1793 for the second of his two visits to London. The trips were arranged by the violinist and impresario Johann Peter Salomon and proved to be very good for Haydn both artistically (the 12 "London" symphonies are some of his most popular) and financially ("I made four thousand guilders this evening," wrote Haydn after the 1795 premiere of his 104th symphony). Haydn himself conducted the February 10th, 1794 premiere.

In keeping with contemporary performance practice, he did so not from a podium but from the fortepiano, where he played the continuo part. These days orchestras that don't specialize in "early music" tend to dispense with the keyboard continuo, which I think is a shame. Mr. Labadie, however, is something of an authority on the music of the Baroque and Classical periods, as he demonstrated in concerts here in 2013 (an all-Mozart program), 2014 (Rameau, Haydn, and Mozart), 2015 (Handel's "Messiah" with Ms. Teuscher), and 2017 (an all-Bach program). Will we get to hear that keyboard after all? Come to the concert and find out.

The Essentials: Bernard Labadie conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and soprano soloist Lydia Teuscher Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, March 16 and 17. On Sunday, March 18, at 3 pm, Resident Conductor Gemma New conducts a Family Series concert featuring music by Rossini, Rimski-Korsakov, and a new work by Michael Gandolfi (who chairs the composition department at the prestigious New England Conservatory), "Pinocchio's Adventures in Funland." The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Symphony Review: Happy Haydn highlights mostly-1800 concert

Pianist Yefim Bronfman
Photo: Dario Acosta

Share on Google+:

Jolly Haydn and dramatic Beethoven were on tap this past weekend (September 24 and 25, 2016) at Powell Hall, in a program made up mostly of music written around 1800.

The concerts opened, appropriately, with an overture—specifically, the one Mozart wrote for Die Zauberflöte ("The Magic Flute"), the 1791 Masonic-tinged singspiel that would prove to be his last completed work for the stage. From the three solemn opening chords to the end of the sprightly and ingeniously constructed Allegro that follows, this is music with an optimism and drive that contrasts sharply with its creator's failing health and fortunes.

Mr. Robertson gave those opening chords a kind of dramatic poignancy that reminded me of that contrast, then followed it up with an energetic and expertly shaped reading of the body of the overture. It was the kind of performance that lends credence to critic Jeff Counts's characterization of the piece as "the most rewarding six minutes in music," especially when played with such crystalline precision.

Up next was Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37. The work had its premiere at a mammoth 1803 concert that included his Symphony No. 2 and his oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives. The orchestra was second rate and Beethoven hadn't finished writing out the piano part, playing it instead from memory as Gershwin did at the first performance of Rhapsody in Blue. Subsequent performances were better received, and the concerto is now widely seen as the composer's first truly mature work for piano and orchestra.

The Beethoven revealed here is the dramatic and heaven-storming Beethoven of popular legend. The hushed expectation of the ascending string motif at the beginning soon gives way to high drama with the entrance of the soloist playing music which, as the movement progresses, pushes the capabilities of 1803 piano technology to its limits. The lyrical second movement and energetic finale, with its unexpected fugal passages, are clearly the work of a composer fully in command of his idiom.

Beth Guterman Chu

Soloist Yefim Bronfman, whose prodigious technique has impressed me in the past, delivered everything the score promises. He gave us all the fierce intensity of that first movement, culminating in a particularly dramatic cadenza, with its tranquil final trill leading to a strikingly impassioned coda.

The second movement, which included some fine playing by Principal Flute Mark Sparks and Associate Principal Bassoon Andy Gott, sang as it should, and the final Rondo was completely engaging. In short, Mr. Bronfman and Mr. Robertson gave us a Beethoven third that bodes well for the rest of the complete cycle of Beethoven piano concerti that the SLSO is doing this season.

The second half of the program leapt ahead in time to 1997 with Viola, Viola by English composer George Benjamin (b. 1960). This intimate piece for two violas is the product of a composer who, like Beethoven, continually revises and reworks his pieces until he's sure they're just right. Over the course of its ten minutes, the instruments converse, argue, and finally combine so seamlessly that it can be hard to tell them apart.

It was fun to watch the impressive virtuoso interplay between the wife and husband team of Beth Guterman Chu (Principal Viola) and Jonathan Chu (Assistant Principal Viola) here, but the score itself struck me as a bit arid. I came away feeling that I had admired a neat bit of musical clockwork.

The concert concluded with a wonderfully good-humored romp through Haydn's Symphony No. 102 in B-flat major. First performed in 1795, it was written for the second of two highly successful London engagements in the 1790s. By then Haydn's audiences were increasingly drawn from the educated middle class rather than the aristocracy, and like any good showman, he knew what they wanted: novelty, invention, surprise and a healthy dollop of good humor.

Jonathan Chu

"Haydn's 102nd, just like all of his London symphonies," wrote Tom. Service in a 2013 article for The Guardian, "consecrates a moment in symphonic history when this composer and his listeners were in excellent, mutually appreciative accord, a bond that's renewed every time this symphony is played or listened to today." Mr. Robertson's performance honored that bond in both audible and visual ways. This was especially true in the finale, in which Haydn playfully throws snippets of the melody back and forth between sections like a game of musical tennis. Mr. Robertson followed those leaps with his head like a spectator at Wimbledon, to the obvious amusement of the audience. Purists might object to those sorts of hijinks, but I think Haydn would have loved it.

And all this was, in any case, in the service of a very knowing and idiomatic performance, with the usual high level of playing from the members of the band. I was very much taken with Principal Cello Danny Lee's work in the Adagio second movement as well as the flutes, oboes, and bassoons in the trio section of the comically off-center third movement Menuet.

Mr. Robertson clearly understands both Haydn's humor and inventiveness. I'd like to see him take on more of the composer's symphonies in the future.

Next at Powell: David Robertson conducts with violin soloist Leila Josefowicz on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., September 30 and October 1.  The program consists of John Adams's Violin Concerto and Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 ("Eroica"). Information on this and future concerts is available at the SLSO web site.

Symphony Preview: Ludwig van Beethoven, technology pioneer

Share on Google+:

A vast chronological gulf separates three of the pieces on this St. Louis Symphony program this Saturday and Sunday (September 24 and 25, 2016) from the fourth. The works by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven on the program all date from the final decade of the 18th century while the music that opens the second half of the concert—George Benjamin's Viola, Viola—is from the final decade of the 20th.

Drawing of Mozart by Doris Stock, 1789

And yet, they all, somehow, get lumped under the category of "classical music." SLSO program annotator René Spencer Saller rightly decries the term as an "annoying lower-case catch-all term for the sort of thing that symphony orchestras do" but then goes on to remind us that Mr. Benjamin "might have been born 133 years after Beethoven's death, but he was still shaped by him. We all were. We all are.” So maybe the "classical" label isn't entirely bogus.

The concerts open, appropriately, with an overture-specifically, the one Mozart wrote for Die Zauberflöte ("The Magic Flute"). Written towards the end of the composer's sadly brief life (Mozart had only a few months to live when it premiered in September of 1791), Die Zauberflöte was intended not for an audience of nobles at court but rather for ordinary folks at a suburban theater that was closer in ambience to a tavern. A singspiel with spoken dialog instead of recitatives and a text in German instead of the fashionable Italian, the work is the fantastic and somewhat incoherent tale of romance, magic, and the triumph of love and reason over superstition.

Mozart was a Master Mason in the "Zur Neugekrönten Hoffnung" ("New Crowned Hope") lodge in Vienna, so both the overture and the opera are filled with Masonic musical references, including frequent uses of the number three in various combinations. You hear it immediately in the three solemn chords that open the overture, which quickly shifts gears to a sprightly and ingeniously constructed Allegro. "Mozart treats us to right away to fugue, transformation, delightful instrumental playfulness and an invigorating sense that something special is in store", writes Jeff Counts in program notes for the Utah Symphony. "This is the hopeful music of a man with plans for the future, not the last rites of someone who felt time slipping and assumed he had said enough. From this perspective, the Overture to The Magic Flute may well be the most rewarding six minutes in music."

Beethoven in 1803
Painted by Christian Horneman

Up next is Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37, a work which shows the composer in a role for which he is not, in my experience, always given enough credit: that of an "early adopter" of technology.

The technology in question is that of the piano. At the time Beethoven was writing the C minor concerto (around 1800, although he had ideas for it a few years earlier), major technological advances were being made in the design and construction of the instrument. It was becoming bigger and heavier, the sound was getting more robust, and the range of notes wider. When Beethoven began composing in the 1780s, the piano (then called the fortepiano) was basically an amped-up harpsichord with strings that were struck instead of plucked and a range of around four or five octaves. By the time he died in 1827, the piano had evolved into something closely resembling the contemporary concert grand, with a range of nearly eight octaves and the ability to produce the kind of thunderous climaxes that composers like Fanz Liszt loved so much.

A major player in this technological revolution was the English firm of John Broadwood and Sons. As part of their marketing campaign, they sent their new pianos to Haydn and Beethoven, with the result that Beethoven made use of the expanded range of notes for his new concerto. “As originally composed,” writes Ms. Saller, “his Third Concerto requires the soloist to play a high G, which is believed to be the earliest instance of that particular note in the piano repertory. In 1804, after trying out a new expanded keyboard design, Beethoven extended the range to include the C that sits over the fifth ledger line above the treble staff. Even though going higher and higher meant that his concerto could be played only on new, state-of-the-art pianos, Beethoven wanted his concerto to reflect these technological advancements.”

George Benjamin

Beethoven's technological innovations will be played this weekend by Yefim Bronfman, a celebrated performer whose "volcanic pianism" so impressed me when he performed the Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 five years ago. He has the chops to deliver the big dramatic moments along with the musical sensitivity required for the Largo second movement, with its improvisatory feel.

The second half of the concert opens with a local premiere: Viola, Viola. Written in 1997 by English composer George Benjamin (b. 1960), this intimate little piece for two violas is the product of a composer who, like Beethoven, continually revises and reworks his pieces until he's sure they're just right. Over the course of its ten minutes, the instruments converse, argue, and finally combine so seamlessly that it can be hard to tell them apart. Appropriately for such an intimate piece, the soloists will be the wife-and-husband team of Beth Guterman Chu (Principal Viola) and Jonathan Chu (Assistant Principal Viola).

The concerts end with the Haydn's Symphony No. 102 in B-flat major. It was part of a dozen symphonies (the last ones he wrote, in fact) Haydn composed for a pair of trips to London in the last decade of the eighteenth century. Those trips were highly successful, both in terms of critical reception and income. No. 102 was written for the second sojourn, by which time Haydn had a pretty good idea of what his audiences wanted.

Haydn in 1791
Painted by Thomas Hardy

Those audiences were no longer what they were a few decades earlier. Concerts were now public events for the masses, not private affairs for the nobility. Attendees were increasingly educated and middle class. And, as Trinity College's Tom Service writes in his analysis of the 102nd symphony for The Guardian, Haydn knew that this audience "understood and appreciated his invention, his games of expectation and surprise, his effortless manipulation of genre, affect, and expressivity. And he knew he could push them and himself even further when he came back, when his celebrity and status were even greater than before. That means these symphonies are, in effect, palimpsests of listening, pieces composed with their effectiveness for a musically literate audience in mind."

And so we get a symphony that's filled with surprises, invention, and the composer's trademark wit. "Haydn's 102nd, just like all of his London symphonies," writes Mr. Service, "consecrates a moment in symphonic history when this composer and his listeners were in excellent, mutually appreciative accord, a bond that's renewed every time this symphony is played or listened to today."

You can renew that bond this weekend at Powell Hall on Saturday at 8 p.m. or Sunday at 3 p.m. The Saturday concert will also be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio, but as always I recommend hearing it live.

Symphony Preivew: All roads lead to Mozart

Share on Google+:

Nicholas McGegan, who is conducting the St. Louis Symphony in a program of (mostly) Mozart this weekend, is clearly a man who enjoys his work. When I've seen him conduct the orchestra, he practically bounds out to the podium, his face alight with a cherubic smile. His body language shouts: "this is going to be FUN!" And so it always is.

Mozart, party animal

That couldn't be more appropriate for Mozart, a fellow who certainly knew how to enjoy himself. The portrait of Mozart as a potty-mouthed party animal in Peter Shaffer's popular play "Amadeus" may be distorted, but it's a distortion based on reality. Even as a child, some of Mozart's letters home were, as Brockway and Weinstock write in "Men of Music," "so coarse (to our taste but not to that of the eighteenth century) that their editors have scarcely left on unbowdlerized. Mozart is often in high, and very often in ribald, spirits."

Those high spirits are clearly in evidence from the very beginning of the "Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat major," K. 271, that closes the first half of this weekend's concerts. "This is an astonishing and delightful opening," writes Charles Rosen of the Allegro first movement in "The Classical Style, "surprising not only for its use of the soloist at the very outset, but also for the wit with which he enters, as he replies to the orchestral fanfare." The second movement is dramatic and even tragic, but the Rondeau: Presto finale, with an unexpectedly graceful minuet in the middle, once again shows Mozart in jolly form.

The soloist for the concerto is Music Director David Robertson's wife, Orli Shaham. A frequent guest at Powell, Ms. Shaham is a versatile pianist, as comfortable with contemporary music as she is with the established classics. She also has a theatrical keyboard style that's fun to watch, which should mesh nicely with Mr. McGegan's exuberance.

The other Mozart music on the program is a bit more solemn: three entr'actes written in 1774 for the five-act drama "Thamos, King of Egypt" by Tobias Philipp, baron von Gebler. The play is filled with skullduggery and backstabbing in ancient Egypt, so Mozart's incidental music is appropriately dramatic. "Gebler’s play," writes John Henken in program notes for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, "is a Masonic allegory, and though not yet a Mason himself, Mozart gave it much of the expressive symbolism he later lavished on The Magic Flute. This is particularly apparent in the first Interlude, with its richly rhetorical chords, slippery chromaticism, muscular tension, and its contrast of light and dark." Whether or not Mozart ever saw a production of the play with his music is unknown.

Haydn in 1792
Artist: Joseph Hardy

Also on the bill this weekend is the "Symphony No. 98 in B-flat major," written in 1792 by Mozart's older contemporary (and admirer) Joseph Haydn. It was part of a dozen symphonies (the last ones he wrote, in fact) composed for a pair of trips to London in the last decade of the eighteenth century that were highly successful, both in terms of critical reception and income. It's notable for, among other things, a second movement that might contain a passing reference to the British national anthem. "The slow movement," writes Philip Huscher in program notes for the Chicago Symphony, "opens with a veiled reference to the first two phrases of 'God save the King,' which Haydn had heard played by a wind band 'in the street during a wild snowstorm' while he was putting the finishing touches on the symphony. Donald Tovey, the British critic and writer, thought that the slow movement, which toys with quoting from Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, was Haydn’s way of paying homage to his friend. Whatever Haydn’s intent, this music is like a great hymn."

The symphony is also notable for its final movement. "At the very end," writes Mr. Huscher, "Haydn uncharacteristically takes the spotlight. Since it was still Haydn’s habit in 1792 to conduct his symphonies from the keyboard, where he would normally provide the unobtrusive harmonies of the continuo part, he wrote a few measures of rippling arpeggios for himself to play. Like all of Haydn’s inside jokes, it’s over in a flash. Apparently the London audience loved it, for, as Haydn’s journal boasted, in a newly learned English that would have impressed Mozart, 'the new Symphony in B-flat was given, and the first and last Allegros encort.'" Playing the role of Haydn this weekend will be Ms. Shaham. Somehow, I don't think she quite looks the part of a 60-year-old Austrian, but I expect her performance will make you forget that.

Gluck in 1775
Artist: Joseph Duplessis

The concerts open with thirteen dances from Christoph Willibald Gluck's 1761 ballet "Don Juan," as arranged by Mr. McGegan. As Paul Schiavo points out in his program notes, Gluck's ballet is based on Molière's play "Le Festin de pierre" ("The Stone Guest"), many elements of which would find their way into Lorenzo DaPonte's libretto for Mozart's "Don Giovanni" over two decades later. "The most arresting music," notes Mr. Schiavo, "comes at the end of the ballet, when the preternatural statue confronts Don Juan and effects his doom. Here furious scale figures, piercing harmonies and menacing tones of the wind instruments make for strong musical drama."

Compared to what Gluck's contemporaries were writing back then, those final movements are highly arresting and melodramatic. Audiences seem to have found it to be rather strong stuff, though. "Gluck’s audience," wrote David Hurwitz in a 2009 article for "Listen" magazine, "was fascinated by the work, as much for the dancing and decor as for the music itself. It exercised a certain horrid fascination — some listeners actually found the piece ugly, but still couldn’t resist it." He goes on to observe that "Gluck’s music inspired a whole new generation of composers. Mozart’s own 'hell scene' in Don Giovanni reveals the clear influence of Gluck’s earlier effort, and not just because it’s in the same key. It is the music’s expressive intensity that links the two composers."

This weekend, it seems, all roads lead to Mozart.

The Essentials: Nicholas McGegan conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, with piano soloist Orli Shaham, on Friday at 10:30 a.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m., November 6 and 7. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

1764 And All That

Bernard Labadie

Share on Google+:

Who: The St. Louis Symphony conducted by Bernard Labadie with soloists Philip Ross (oboe), Andrew Gott (bassoon), Kristin Ahlstrom (violin), and Melissa Brooks (cello)
What: Music of Rameau, Haydn, and Mozart
When: February 21-23, 2014
Where: Powell Symphony Hall

[Find out more about the music with the symphony program notes and my Symphony Preview article.]

Unless you've been holed up on the dark side of the moon lately, you've probably noticed that 2014 is the 250th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis. As a glance at the STL250 web site clearly shows, local celebrations of the event are popping up all over. This weekend the St. Louis Symphony is doing its part with a program that includes works composed between 1763 and 1792, including a Haydn symphony that's almost exactly the same age as our fair city.

Under the expert baton of early music specialist Bernard Labadie, the concerts show just how much variety there can be in a relatively small span of time.

Rameau

The concerts open with a lively suite of dances from Jean-Philippe Rameau's 1763 tragédie en musique "Les Boréades". Rameau was in the final year of his long and productive life when he wrote it (he died in 1764 at the age of 81), so he never saw it performed. No surprise there. What is surprising, as Mr. Labadie points out in his fascinating pre-concert remarks, is that due in part to legal issues over the performance rights, nobody else got to see it either for well over two centuries. Happily, the issues were resolved a decade ago, allowing audiences to enjoy Rameau's tuneful and inventive score.

The suite got a crisp and polished reading from Mr. Labadie and the orchestra. The fanciful "Gavottes pour les heures" was especially fun, with Andrea Kaplan and Ann Choomack on piccolo joining Andrew Cuneo and Henry Skolnick on bassoon (the latter at the very top of their registers) to perfectly conjure up whirling clockwork. The suite is short—two of the dances listed in the program were cut, presumably because of the length of the concert overall—but nicely chosen and thoroughly entertaining.

Up next was Haydn's "Sinfonia concertante in B-flat major," Hob. I:105. A Classical-era revision of the Baroque concerto grosso, works in the sinfonia concertante mold featured an ensemble of solo players with orchestra instead of the single soloist that would later characterize the concerto form. In this case it's a solo quartet: violin, cello, oboe, and bassoon.

Haydn portrait by
Thomas Hardy (1757-c. 1805)

It's the "newest" piece on the program, dating from 1792 and written for the composer's first trip to London, where he was embraced with open arms and open purses as well. A contemporary review raved about it, saying that it "combined with all the excellencies of music" and was "was profound, airy, affecting, and original." That's as good a description as any of this consistently engaging work, with its clear and concise structure (it clocks in at 22 minutes) and Haydn's characteristic good humor.

That good humor is especially apparent in the final movement, in which the violin has to restate the main theme three times before the orchestra "gets it." Symphony annotator Paul Schiavo sees it as a humorous portrayal of a music lesson, although to me it sounded more like an operatic recitative followed by an aria. Either way, the violin and cello get in the last word, with short flourishes at the very tops of their registers just before the final chords.

The solo quartet consists entirely members of the home team: Acting Co-Principal oboe Philip Ross, Associate Principal bassoon Andrew Gott, Associate Principal Second Violin Kirstin Ahlstrom, and Associate Principal cello Melissa Brooks. It's always good to see the local folks in the spotlight, especially when they play with such seemingly effortless grace. Their sound was perfectly balanced, both within the solo group and against the orchestra.

The second half of the concert features symphonies by the two giants of the Classical period, Haydn and Mozart. We begin with Haydn's 1764 "Symphony No. 22 in E-flat major." It's nicknamed "The Philosopher" for any number of reasons, depending on whom you ask. In his post-intermission commentary, Mr. Labadie opined that it refers to the way the dialog between the horns and English horns (the darker-toned cousins of the oboe) in the stately first movement imitates the Socratic "question and answer" style of teaching. To me, the entire movement has always conjured up the image of a thoughtful academic carefully laying out a mathematical proof or explaining a complex philosophical issue. Your mileage may vary.

Here, as in the rest of the program, Mr. Labadie drew fine performances from the orchestra, with tempi that felt historically right. The dialog between horns Thomas Jöstlein and Anna Spina and English horns Cally Banham and Michelle Duskey was right on the money and the third movement Menuetto had a "folk dance" feel that was, I expect, very much what Haydn had in mind.

Detail of Mozart portrait by
Johann Nepomuk della Croce
(1736-1819)

The final work on the program—Mozart's "Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major," K. 543—is the first of a set of three that the composer dashed off in a burst of creativity in the summer of 1788. It gets less attention than the other two, much as a normal human being would be less noticed standing next to a pair of NFL linebackers, but that doesn't make it any less a great composition, neatly melding Baroque counterpoint with Classical clarity.

Mr. Labadie conducted without a score, so it's obviously a work he knows intimately. He gave it a lean, energetic reading that made the most of the work's drama (especially in the Andante con moto second movement) without tipping over into exaggeration. The little Alpine waltz of the Menuetto: Allegretto third movement was most charming as well, lovingly rendered by Scott Andrews and Tim Zavadil on clarinets and answered by Andrea Kaplan on flute.

The concerts repeat today (Saturday) at 8 PM and Sunday at 3 PM, February 22 and 23. The Saturday concert will be broadcast on St. Louis Public Radio 90.7 and HD 1.

Next on the schedule: On Wednesday, February 26, at 7:30 PM David Robertson conducts members of the orchestra in a program of music by Steve Reich in a Pulitzer Series concert at the Pulitzer Center for the Arts, 3716 Washington. Then Juanjo Mena conducts the orchestra with piano soloist Benedetto Lupo in a program of music by Ginastera, Rachmaninoff, and Elgar on Friday and Saturday at 8 PM and Sunday at 3 PM, February 28 – March 2, at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Symphonic downsizing

Bernard Labadie

Share on Google+:

When guest conductor Bernard Labadie takes the podium this weekend, he'll be leading a noticeably downsized St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. But never fear; nobody has been sacked. It's just that he's conducting a program of music written between 1763 and 1792, back when both orchestras and the halls in which they played were substantially smaller than they are now.

Although only three decades separate the earliest work on the program (a suite from Jean-Philippe Rameau's 1763 opera "Les Boréades") from the latest one (Haydn's 1792 "Sinfonia concertante in B-flat major," Hob. I:105), the difference in style is striking. Rameau had a very long and productive life (he died just short of what would have been his 81st birthday in September of 1764) and continued composing in the Baroque style long after it was seen as outdated and unfashionable. The developments in symphonic style heard in the Haydn and Mozart works on this weekend's program largely passed him by. Nevertheless, he remained popular and prosperous right to the end.

Kirstin Ahlstrom

Given that it was written the year before he died, it won't surprise you to learn that Rameau never saw "Les Boréades" performed. What is a little surprising is that nobody who was alive at the time ever saw it performed either. For reasons which are not entirely clear, the first fully staged performance didn't occur until July 1982, at the Aix-en-Provence Festival with early music champion John Eliot Gardiner conducting. The piece is technically a tragédie en musique, which means it's based on a mythological subject and includes a lot of dances. You'll hear eight of them this weekend, including a fanciful "Gavottes pour les heures" in which, as Paul Schiavo writes in his program notes, the composer has the "piccolos whirring over a rhythmically steady accompaniment to imitate the workings of a clock."

Philip Ross

The Haydn "Sinfonia concertante" is next. It dates from a time when the form of the solo concerto was not as well established as it would later become, so works for multiple solo instruments and orchestra were common. Haydn wrote his for the first of his two visits to London, a city that embraced him both artistically and financially (“I made four thousand guilders this evening,” wrote Haydn after the 1795 premiere of his 104th symphony).

It was apparently dashed off quickly, possibly in response to a bit of rivalry. "Londoners had become accustomed to the sinfonia concertante due to the energy of Johann Christian Bach," wrote Scott Fogelsong in the San Francisco Examiner in 2009, "whose many examples stand as some of the finest of the genre. Thus Haydn tossed his hat into the ring with his Sinfonia concertante in B-flat for violin, cello, oboe, and bassoon... His own student Pleyel had been making waves in the London concert scene during the same season, and quite possibly Haydn's work was a direct response to Pleyel's popular works. One gets a sense of Haydn grinning slightly and murmuring OK, hotshot, let the old man show you how it's done."

Andrew Gott

And show them he did. The piece was a hit. "A new concertante from HAYDN combined with all the excellencies of music," enthused the Morning Herald the next day; "it was profound, airy, affecting, and original, and the performance was in unison with the merit of the composition. SALOMON particularly exerted himself on this occasion, in doing justice to the music of his friend HAYDN." The soloists playing those "excellencies" this weekend are all members of the home team: Acting Co-Principal oboe Philip Ross, Associate Principal bassoon Andrew Gott, Associate Principal Second Violin Kirstin Ahlstrom, and Associate Principal cello Melissa Brooks. It's always good to see the local folks in the spotlight.

Melissa Brooks

The second half of the concert features symphonies by the two giants of the Classical period, Haydn and Mozart. We begin with Haydn's "Symphony No. 22 in E-flat major," nicknamed "The Philosopher" possibly because of what the late Harold Truscott described as "the quizzical, semi-ponderous opening Adagio." The name first appears on a 1790 manuscript copy of the score found in Modena, according to Wikipedia, although we don't know who is responsible for it. To me, that opening movement has always conjured up the image of a thoughtful academic carefully laying out a mathematical proof or explaining a complex philosophical issue, so the sobriquet seems right.

Opening a symphony with an Adagio instead of a conventional fast movement with a slow introduction, by the way, was regarded as quite a novel idea when the piece was composed in 1764. "Nobody up to that time had thought of starting a symphony with a noble slow movement," writes Mark Elder in The Guardian, "nor had anybody ever thought of the extraordinary sound that the symphony begins with: a chorale played by two horns and two cor anglais against an incessant pattern of notes in the strings. It all gives this movement a strange, unexpected beauty."

The final work on the program—Mozart's "Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major," K. 543—is the first of a set of three that the composer dashed off in the summer of 1788. Nobody is really certain of the source of what Arthur V. Berger (in a New York City Symphony program note) called the "sudden efflorescence of inspiration" that produced Mozart's last and, in the estimation of many writers, greatest symphonies, but the results speak (or rather sing) for themselves.

K. 543 gets less attention than the other two, much as a normal human being would be less noticed standing next to a pair of NFL linebackers, but that doesn't make it any less a great composition. "This symphony," writes musicologist Andrew Firmer, "is...a prime example of the composer 's genius that he is not only able to conjure up melodies, but weave them with apparent contradictions that seem to connect with impossible ease." Those contradictions include Mozart's assimilation of the contrapuntal techniques he got from the music of Bach and Handel. "It was this synthesis of 'learned' style with the clean clarity of classicism," writes Brian Robins at allmusic.com, "that caused so much trouble for Mozart's contemporaries, to whom his late style became increasingly 'difficult.'" Today, with over two centuries of hindsight, it's clear that this "difficult" music is both ingeniously complex and wonderfully clear.

Labadie with Les Violons du Roy

Finally, a few words about guest conductor Bernard Labadie. The founder of early music ensembles Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec, Labadie is widely regarded as a leading interpreter of music of the 17th and 18th centuries. Reviewing a concert by the former group at London's Barbican Center, the Telegraph called him "[A] fine instinctive musician. He moulds the phrases, plucks out all-important details in the texture and radiates an infectious joy in the music.” So we'll be hearing and expert's take on our Rameau, Haydn and Mozart.

The essentials: Bernard Labadie conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in a suite from Rameau's "Les Boréades," Haydn's "Sinfonia concertante in B-flat major" and "Symphony No. 22 in E-flat major," and Mozart's "Symphony No. 39" in the same key. Performances are Friday at 10:30 AM (a Krispy Kreme coffee concert, with free doughnuts), Saturday at 8 PM, and Sunday at 3 PM, February 21-23, at Powell Hall in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org. The Saturday concert will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio at 90.7 FM, HD 1, and streaming from the station web site. But, of course, it 's best heard live.

Far away places with strange-sounding names

Who: The St. Louis Symphony conducted by Nicholas McGegan with violin soloist Stefan Jackiw
What: Music of von Weber, Mozart, Rameau, and Haydn
When: Friday and Saturday, November 8 and 9
Where: Powell Symphony Hall

Share on Google+

Nicholas McGegan, who is conducting the St. Louis Symphony in a program of (mostly) 18th-century classics this weekend, is clearly a man who enjoys his work.  As he bounded out to the podium for this morning's Krispy Kreme Coffee Concert, his face alight with a cherubic smile, his body language was saying: "this is going to be FUN!"  And so it was.

From the lively presto 16th-note figure in the strings that opens the overture to von Weber's 1811 singspiel "Abu Hassan" at the top of the program to the rousing brass and percussion coda of Haydn's "Symphony No. 100" in G major (known as the "military" because of all that hardware) at the end, this was a concert that radiated joy.  Mr. McGegan and the players were having such a good time it was impossible not to enter into the spirit of the thing.

"Intimations of exotic locales and cultures," writes Paul Schiavo in his program notes, "particularly those considered the orient, constitute a distinctive and especially colorful strand in Western music." These concerts, in fact, offer a window onto the pervasive fascination with the cultures of the near east in general and Turkey in particular that pops up often in 17th and 18th century music.

von Weber

The reasons for that fascination are partly political. Austria and Turkey (a.k.a. the Ottoman Empire) were at war on and off from the around 1526 until almost the end of the 18th century, when the 1797 Treaty of Sistova left both nations in sufficient disarray to discourage any more military adventures. In Europe and (especially) Austria, therefore, all things Turkish and Middle Eastern were seen as exotic and not a little dangerous—which naturally made them interesting to composers and other creative types.

The "Abu Hassan" overture, then, was a perfect choice for an opener. The one-act farce for which it was written (Lewis Foreman of the University of Birmingham calls it a "vigorous romp with a Fedeauesque sub-plot") doesn't get performed much these days, but the overture is a tune-filled favorite. Mr. McGegan and the orchestra gave an appropriately lean and lively account of it.

Conducting without a baton throughout the concert, Mr. McGegan artfully shaped phrases and cued musicians with his hands and fingers, molding the music like modeling clay. He's a strong physical presence on the podium, making particularly expressive use of his upper body. He's not the dancer some visceral conductors are, staying more or less in one spot, but he vibrates with energy nevertheless. And, as I say, he just radiates infectious good cheer.

Following the Weber was Mozart's "Violin Concerto No. 5" in A major, K. 219 (from 1775). The first two movements aren't particularly exotic, although the Adagio second movement is longer and does have a more elaborate orchestral introduction than any of Mozart's other violin concertos. It's the third movement Rondeau, however, that has caused some writers to dub it the "Turkish" concerto. In the middle section, Mozart changes the time signature to 2/4 and uses some exotic melodic effects, including having cellos and basses slap their strings with the wood of the bow (Mozart calls it "coll'arco roverscio"). To my ears is sounds more Gypsy than Turkish, but back in the day it yelled "Ottoman".

Soloist Stefan Jackiw—a much-praised young American violinist making his SLSO debut—took a more lyrical approach to the work than I expected, starting with his first entrance in the opening movement. It's marked "adagio" in the score, but here it felt a bit slower and more expressive than I would have expected. His first-movement cadenza, as well, was a fascinating combination of lyricism and virtuoso display. It all added up to an almost Romantic slant to the piece—and one for which he and Mr. McGegan made a most persuasive case.

The audience apparently agreed, offering enthusiastic applause. Mr. Jackiw responded with an encore: a deeply felt "Largo" from the "Sonata for solo violin No. 3" in C major, BWV 1005.

Rameau

After intermission, it was a step back in time to 1735-36 with a suite from Jean-Philippe Rameau's opéra-ballet "Les Indes Galantes" ("The Gallant Indians"). The opéra-ballet was a kind of musical theatre hybrid popular in late 17th and early 18th century France in which dance was prominent. It consisted of a prologue followed by three or four semi-independent acts united by a common theme. For "Les Indes Galantes," the theme is romantic triangles in such exotic locales as Turkey, Peru, Persia, and, in a fourth act added for the 1736 revival, America ("Les Sauvages," "The Savages of America").

The nine selections assembled for this concert offered a nice balance of airs and dances and presented plenty of opportunities for individual players to shine. That included the oboes (Phil Ross and Michelle Duskey) and bassoons (Andy Gott and Felicia Foland) in the "Air pour les Amours," flautists Andrea Kaplan and Ann Choomack in the "Prélude pour l'adoration du Soleil," concertmaster David Halen and Ms. Kaplan in the "Airs pour Zéphire," and principal trumpet Karin Bliznik in the concluding "Chaconne." Maryse Carlin provided the fine harpsichord continuo.

The concert concluded with a wonderfully entertaining performance of Haydn's Symphony No. 100 in G major, dubbed the "military" because the use of brass, timpani, and triangle in both the second movement and finale recalled the noisy percussion of the Janissary bands of the Turkish military. The effect is striking, even to modern ears—especially when performed with the kind of finesse it got Friday morning.

Back in Haydn's day it was apparently electrifying. According to a Morning Chronicle review of the March 31, 1795 premiere in London (where all of Haydn's last twelve symphonies were first performed), "the middle movement was again received with absolute shouts of applause. Encore! encore! encore! resounded from every seat".

The audience at Powell didn't demand encores, but they did give Mr. McGegan and company a standing ovation. They deserved it. There were so many wonderful touches in this performance: the sense of fun in the interplay between the winds and strings in the main theme of the first movement, the power of the dramatic interjections of the percussion in the second, and the wonderful lightness and precision of the 6/8 "Finale." This was "big band" Haydn with the fleet-footed sensibility of "original instrument" ensembles. I loved it, and I wasn't alone.

Next at Powell Hall: David Robertson leads the orchestra, chorus, and soloists in a concert performance of Benjamin Britten's opera "Peter Grimes" on Saturday, November 16, at 8 PM. It's a preview of the performance they'll be giving of the work at Carnegie Hall on Britten's 100th birthday on November 22nd. That'll be followed by "Symphony SLAM" on Sunday the 17th at 3 PM. The SLSO web site describes that as "a true fusion between visual art and music" in which music director David Robertson "pairs images of some of the Saint Louis Art Museum's beloved treasures with music from Britten and Bartók."  For more information: stlsymphony.org